Staff Hiring & Recruiting

NOTE: If you are recruiting a straight replacement of an existing position that has been recruited within the past year AND has no changes to salary grade/pay table, job code, or job duties/responsibilities, skip down to Obtaining Approval & Posting.

Consult with your Executive Office HR contact regarding your business needs and proposed staffing plan. Executive Office HR will provide consultation and guidance on appropriate employment classes and job codes. For this meeting, please come prepared to discuss the following items.

During the position development stage, you should assemble a draft position description that captures the duties and responsibilities, reporting structure, required skills and experience, and other relevant position details. Utilize the EOHR Classified Staff Position Description Template (PDF) or the UWHR Professional Staff Position Description Template (PDF) to draft your position description. You may also elect to revise an existing position description for a similar position type.

Please reach out to the Executive Office HR team for examples of past/current position descriptions.

Do not include advertising language in the text of the position description form. Prior to posting, UW Total Talent Management (formerly UW Recruiting Services) will include the required UW advertising language. Please consult with the Executive Office HR team if you have specific language that you would like to include in the final posting.

Diversity is one of the six values at the University of Washington that guides institutional goals for students, staff, and faculty. In support of the UW’s commitment to inclusive excellence, we encourage all managers to regularly review Central HR’s “DEI-Related Trainings for Hiring Managers”, particularly the “Implicit Bias Training”, as you prepare for your recruitment. This toolkit offers checklists, resources, and further guidance on how to recruit and retain a diverse workforce.

Before you begin the position development process, be sure that your planned salary range has been reviewed and pre-approved by your VP-level unit approver or Kim Dinh, Senior Director for Finance, HR, and Administration. Consult the HR Hiring Approval Flow Chart to confirm who needs to approve your salary range.

Be aware that “resources” are not just limited to salary and benefits, but space assignment, operational expenses (IT, software, equipment, supplies), professional development and training, and travel.

For new or revised positions, consider any impacts on job duties/responsibilities for existing positions or if it will impact existing team structures or reporting lines.

Consult Executive Office HR if this will be an open recruitment, limited recruitment (open to UW employees only), or closed recruitment (direct hire for a fixed term or limited appointments only).

Once the position development steps are fully completed, review the Hiring New Staff Instructions & Best Practices and ensure you have all required documentation, then navigate to the form linked from the webpage.

Refer to the New Staff Hire Request Instructions page for guidance on documentation that should be uploaded with the request form. 

Refer to the EOHR Approval Flow for information on the approval and routing process.

Application materials will be received initially by Executive Office HR. Per the preferences of the search committee, the materials may be forwarded to the search committee members via email, or search committee members may be granted UWHIRES Workbench access to the hiring requisition to view the materials directly online. The vetting process is different depending on the position’s employment program:

Classified Staff positions – Applications are initially vetted by Total Talent Management. Only applicants who meet the minimum requirements will be forwarded to Executive Office HR. When considering candidates:

• Contract classified candidates (they will appear on the requisition with Promo, Lateral Transfer/Move, or Voluntary Demotion) must be considered before non-contract-classified candidates.
• At least one bargaining unit applicant per job requisition must be granted an interview for bargaining unit positions.
• The contract stipulates that “where the skills, abilities, and experience of the vacant position are considered equal, the Employer will offer the position to a bargaining unit applicant.”
• The contract also provides that “applicants from the bargaining unit who possess the essential skills but are not offered the position may request an explanation, written or oral, as to why the position was not offered.”

Professional Staff positions – Total Talent Management will complete an initial review of all applications. Applicants who meet eligibility and position requirements will be forwarded to the Executive Office HR team. Discuss with Executive Office HR team if you feel your recruitment would benefit from an additional pre-screening by the Executive Office HR team.

Prior to screening resumes, all search committee members should consult HR’s guidelines on Fair Pre-Employment Inquiry.

Screening materials

• Screening and interview documents and notes are subject to a 3-year retention period (10 years for positions at the Director level or above) following the conclusion of any search, regardless of whether a hire was completed.
• Please be aware that any discussions, meeting notes, rubrics, or ranking criteria either in paper or email form will be collected and filed and subject to public records requests within that retention period.
• Any written or typed notes should comply with the Fair Pre-Employment Inquiry.
• Do not take down any notes or make any comments that do not align with these guidelines.

For competitive recruitments, all applicants must be subject to the same review and interviewing process.

Each candidate should be interviewed by the same person(s)/panel and be asked the same questions. All members of the interview panel should review and be familiar with the Fair Pre-Employment Inquiry before conducting interviews.

Aside from inquiring about the candidate’s skills and experience, be sure to cover the expectations of the position such as the expected schedule, typical duties and responsibilities, and physical requirements (if applicable).

Allow time for the candidate to ask questions for each interview panel. In order to provide accurate information to the candidate, be sure that you are knowledgeable about the position details, including:

• Benefits Eligibility – most classified and professional positions at 50% FTE or more and for a period of 6 months or greater are eligible for some type of benefits. Provide the candidate with the UW Total Benefits PDF for further details: Classified Staff Benefits Summary (pdf), Professional Staff Benefits Summary (pdf)

• Time Off Accrual and Usage Policy
  • For Classified Staff positions, refer to the union contract for full details on time off accrual and usage: SEIU 925 Contract, All Other Labor Contracts
  • Professional Staff Program – Time Off and Holidays

Communicate with the candidate about the expected recruitment timeline and next steps. Ask how soon they would be able to start if offered the position. Well-qualified candidates may be interviewing for other positions and have other options to consider, so be open about your recruiting time frame in order to manage expectations.

Effective July 28, 2019, employers are prohibited from inquiring an applicant’s wage or salary history or requiring an applicant’s prior wage or salary to meet certain criteria. Find more information on the Washington State’s Equal Pay and Opportunities Act (EPOA) .

Learn about Interviewing Courtesies for Individuals with Disabilities and disability accommodations. Do not inquire about a candidate’s disabilities or whether they would require reasonable accommodation during the interview process.

Upon completing interviews, conduct reference checks for your top candidate(s). Please follow the reference check guidance which includes information on seeking references on internal employees. References should all be based on professional relationships—individuals who have worked with the finalist in a professional setting and are familiar with their day-to-day work and overall performance on the job.

Plan on conducting at least three professional reference checks, with at least one of those references being the current supervisor (or most recent supervisor if not currently employed).

Utilize the UWHR General Reference Check Form (docx) in order to document the conversation. You may ask additional questions not included on the form (such as attendance record), but be sure to ask the same ad-hoc questions for all reference checks, especially when conducting checks for multiple candidates. Once again, all inquiries must comply with the Fair Pre-Employment Inquiry guidelines.

We recommend that each reference check be conducted with at least two search committee members present in order to ensure the accuracy of notes and records of the call.

Please Note: If the finalist is a current or former UW employee, please alert Executive Office HR. They will work with central HR to request a review of the candidate’s official personnel record. UWHR will provide a summary of any documented performance or employee relations issues that occurred over the last three years of the candidate’s employment at the UW. This personnel record check is required before any offer can be extended to current or former UW employees.

Final Candidate Disclosure

Effective October 1, 2020, the UW is required to ask final candidates who are not already UW employees to sign a statement disclosing whether they:

• Are the subject of any substantiated findings of sexual misconduct in any current or former employment
• Are currently being investigated for sexual misconduct at any current employer
• Have left a position during an investigation into a violation of any sexual misconduct policy at any current or past employers

For any positive response, final candidates are required to provide an explanation of the situation and additional steps may be required. The Executive Office HR team will initiate this Sexual Misconduct Disclosure Statement process with the UWHR Recruiting Office once reference checks are completed and before the official hiring offer can be made. A hire will not be finalized until the completed and signed declaration is received.

Sexual Misconduct Verification 

Effective July 1, 2021, the UW is required to request in writing that the final candidate’s current or former Washington state postsecondary educational institution employers disclose whether the candidate:

• Is the subject of any substantiated findings of sexual misconduct
• Is currently being investigated for sexual misconduct
• Has left a position during an investigation into a violation of any sexual misconduct policy

The request must include a copy of the declaration and statement completed by the final candidate.

The UW may request all documents and information in the candidate’s current or former personnel, investigative, or other files relating to any sexual misconduct, including sexual harassment. Final candidates may be asked to execute additional forms required by their current or former employer(s) to release such information to the UW.

For full details, please consult Total Talent Management’s webpage on Sexual Misconduct Disclosure.

Once the reference checks are fully completed and you are ready to proceed with an offer, contact Executive Office HR with your planned compensation offer and proposed start date. The Executive Office HR team will submit the offer in UWHIRES for approval. Do not extend any verbal or written offers to the finalist until Executive Office HR confirms approval of the compensation offer.

The Executive Office HR team will advise you once the salary offer is approved and then you can make the offer to the finalist. Inform the finalist that the offer is contingent on satisfactorily passing a criminal background check. Once the finalist accepts, contact Executive Office HR and they will work with Total Talent Management to initiate the background check process. It is not our unit’s practice to issue formal offer letters to be signed by the new hire.

Once the background check is cleared and the hiring is completed, a hiring confirmation letter will be drafted by Executive Shared Services and forwarded to the direct supervisor of the position for final signature and delivery to the new hire.

If the finalist is a current UW employee with no break in service, consult with Executive Office HR to verify if a background check is still required. Turnaround time for background checks can vary from a few days (for new hires that have only lived in Washington State) to several weeks (for individuals who have lived abroad in recent years).

The position start date cannot come before the completion of the background check. As a result, it may be necessary to shift the proposed start date in order to accommodate the background check timeline.

Once the background check is fully cleared, the hiring will be completed in UWHIRES and routed to Workday to initiate the onboarding process.